Boulder raccoon death charging decision riles some activists

DA Stan Garnett ruled animal cruelty count did not apply

The Boulder County District Attorney's Office decision to dismiss felony animal cruelty charges against a University of Colorado student has not sat well with some animal rights activists who maintain the killing violated hunting regulations.

But the Boulder district attorney maintains that there was not an appropriate charge available to prosecutors in the case.

Jace Roberts Griffiths, 20, was arrested in November after he told police he killed a raccoon with a bat so he could "take its hide."

Griffiths was charged with one count of aggravated animal cruelty. But in a motion filed on Jan. 23, District Attorney Stan Garnett said Colorado law allows the killing of "furbearers" — including raccoons — during certain seasons for people with the proper licenses.

"We looked very closely at that case and could not find any charges that we felt were appropriate," Garnett said. "We had no evidence the animal was not killed quickly and painlessly.

"If it is killed quickly and painlessly and doesn't suffer it is not animal cruelty, and we could not find a hunting regulation ever cited in court that applied to this situation."

Griffiths declined to comment on the story.

Rita Anderson with the Boulder's In Defense of Animals said she believes that while Griffiths had a license to hunt furbearers, the kill was still illegal.

The Colorado Department of Wildlife's website lists a number of different legal methods of taking animals, but the regulation also states "any method of take not listed herein shall be prohibited." Under the furbearers section, the listed legal methods of take are rifle or handgun, shotgun, handheld bows and crossbows, and traps.

"Bludgeoning or whacking or batting is not listed," Anderson said.

Anderson said since bats are not listed, Griffiths should have been subject to hunting violations and therefore the felony animal cruelty charges.

Jace Roberts Griffiths (JEREMY PAPASSO / Daily Camera)

"I do believe animal cruelty charges could have been brought," Anderson said. "The hunting excuse was utterly absurd."

Jennifer Churchill, a spokeswoman with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said the department left the decision about charges up to the Boulder police and the district attorney.

In this particular incident, charges were filed by the city of Boulder and not our agency," Churchill said. "Due to this, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has elected to honor District Attorney Stan Garnett's expertise and opinion in this matter."

Garnett said he has met with Anderson and others who disagreed with the ruling in the past week.

"I have enormous respect for the people who have contacted me about this," Garnett said. "The reality is we can only enforce the laws we actually have, not the laws we wish we had."

To that measure, Garnett said it is sometimes difficult to prosecute cruelty to animal cases involving animals that can be legally hunted.

"There's a tension between the fact that we have animal cruelty statutes but also permit hunting," Garnett said. "If you're going to have a statute that prohibits torture and needless killing of an animal but that same statutory scheme also permits Colorado Parks and Widlife to license people to kill animals at certain times, the law needs to do a better job of sorting out that tension between those competing philosophies."

Garnett said his office takes animal cruelty crimes very seriously, noting he has a designated animal cruelty prosecutor — Deputy District Attorney Jenny McClintock — and has even tried some cruelty cases himself.

"I would hold up the record of my office to any other office in the country on cruelty to animal cases," Garnett said.

But Anderson said she thinks Garnett and his office aren't taking animal cruelty charges seriously enough.

"We have repeatedly in group meetings spoken to Stan about how cruelty to animal cases have not been given what we believe to be the right consideration," said Anderson. "These people are getting a slap on the wrist."

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